Philip Shaibu denies spreading COVID-19 – but there are questions Edo State Govt. is yet to answer

In reaction to the series of reports on the status of Edo State’s Deputy Governor, Comrade Philip Shaibu, and whether or not he has been exposed to the coronavirus disease, his media team, in its usual combative and tactless nature, attempted to offer a clarification by claiming that regular testing is a natural occurrence for the Deputy Governor due to his position as the Head of Edo State’s Technical Committee of COVID-19 Response team.

The Deputy Governor, the statement claimed, undergoes regular routine testing, the latest being Thursday, May 7 where, according to them, he was given a clean bill. But there are problems with the statement and several questions that went unanswered.

To start with, apologies must be made to the management and staff of ITV following a report that, admittedly, could cause panic in the media organization and put it in a difficult position with the state government known for its vindictive, retributive tendencies. The intention was not to disparage the station, but to check the excesses of the Deputy Governor who, like his principal, has embraced a lack of accountability and concealment of information that concerns the state.

Philip Shaibu’s team and the government has spent over a billion naira in the management of COVID-19 in Edo State, according to Governor Godwin Obaseki in a press address. However, despite this huge bill and Shaibu’s ability to get routine, regular testing as claimed by his own media team, several regions of Edo State remain without testing centers and the functional one in the capital city of Benin lacks adequate testing kits, an embarrassing situation that compels it to conduct ‘test’ by verbally examining people, according to multiple accounts from those who have undergone such tests.

Similarly, the health workers in the state who are the real heroes on the frontline, not Shaibu as claimed by his media team in an offensive attempt to make a hero out of an Executive who enjoys preferential and luxurious treatment at the expense of the state, remain without Personal Protective Equipment and are exposed to needless danger.

To bridge this gap, Edo State government has routinely begged private companies for handouts, and only recently, it took delivery of some items from a CHINESE firm. If the government and Shaibu’s technical team has spent over a billion naira, but cannot provide the basics needed to fight the viral disease, it begs the question: where did the money go?

Crucially too, in the denial cum grandstanding, a matter of great importance was tactically avoided: whether or not a steward in the service of the Deputy Governor tested positive to the coronavirus disease.

If yes as several reports already confirmed, then an explanation must be given on why this wasn’t announced by the Deputy Governor and his team who announced, almost with glee, the infection of the Deputy Commissioner of Police [without check with the Police hierarchy] – and why even in their response, they failed still to devote a single sentence to clarify this. Could this be another concealment?

Furthermore, in the phone-in program Shaibu appeared in on ITV, he gave an estimate of the cost of ventilators but refused to announce how much the state government purchased the equipments. However, upon checks, from the Deputy Governor’s interview, it costs the Edo State Government about N24 million for each one even though independent investigations into government invoices used for the purchase showed N50 million as the unit cost for one. This contradiction requires clarification with proof, especially as the administration has been accused by several agencies of bucking due process and using the public health crisis to continue its looting of the treasury.

Finally, nearly a month ago, the Edo State government boasted of contracting local tailors for the mass production of face masks for onward distribution to the people of the state AFTER it criminalized movement in the state without the masks. Since then, the special court Obaseki set up has harassed, abused, and extorted poor Edo people to the condemnation of the Nigerian Bar Association – but the government is yet to distribute a single face mask as promised. What happened to the contract?

No one is interested in stigmatizing a man whose public records have already earned him the stigma of an irascible public servant interested only in personal enrichment but if his media team must earn their keep, then they ought to stop being half clever and offer full accountability to the people. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands.


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